Power is out

11/21/11 Monday
This morning we are without power. It’s foggy out so I fear someone had an accident and hit a pole. Power went out at almost exactly 6:00 am and I said a quick prayer for the protection or health of whoever had an accident, if indeed that happened. Cherie had already made our morning pot of coffee so we had that. The fog means moisture and when I took Cherie’s phone out to the truck, in order to charge it up on the truck battery, the soil was wet. Out here on this desert farm any wet is welcome. There is a chance of thunderstorms predicted today so we pray and hope some comes out way. The winter wheat and rye I planted is sure starved for water, along with everything else.

I got a door put up in the bathroom yesterday. Was grateful to Cherie for her encouragement and reminders to accomplish that task. The new used truck is now legal for the road but I need to pull wheels and investigate the brakes, for there is some grinding and squeaking to be heard while I drive. I also need to see if I can find some exhaust pipe in order to take out the soot collector device that is part of the exhaust. It looks like a catalytic convertor but isn’t and is not legally required on this year diesel. They are known to plug up and that could account for the steady decline in mileage. The shop that repaired our rusty exhaust so we could pass inspection pointed it out to me and will do the work for fifty bucks. Fifty dollars right now is a lot of money. We had gone up north with four thousand budgeted for the new truck but when all was said and done the $1550.00 we spent was all we had left. So I’ll see if I can do that exhaust job myself.

It’s 8:19 and there is still no power. There is a good lesson in this for us. Our reliance on electrical power is an issue we need to address when it comes to our long term plans for this farm. Out here on the farm power outages happen but in the days to come there may be serious interruptions. Iran has published plans that reveal a strategy to destroy or hamper our electrical grid and China has teams of computer hackers that regularly attack the computer systems that control our electricity, along with everything else. To be self-reliant is one of our goals, and that is why I bought a diesel truck. Should things all fall to pieces we can at least run the tractor and truck on vegetable oil. I can buy vegetable oil for a buck a gallon or so but need a filtration system to process it into bio diesel fuel. A press designed to extract oils from seeds would be great for the future too. We could grow our fuel then.

2:41 – The power is still out. I called this morning and learned that a substation that Sharyland Utilities (our power company) shares with Oncor, another power company, had caught on fire. He said they hoped to have the power on by noon. It’s obvious that won’t happen. Must have been one heck of a fire.

I have a fire going now in the woodburner. It was pretty cold here so a fire was a good idea. Plus with the woodburner I can heat up water for coffee or hot chocolate and in a pinch cook food. One of these years I would love to get a real wood fired cook stove. The kind that every house had before electricity and electric appliances became the norm. They still make them new, but those run about ten grand for the real good fancy ones. There are plenty of antique wood stoves out there, mostly up north, that can be found. So it’s on the dream list.

right now I am at the McDonalds in Lamesa. Came for the quest for manhood class I help teach at the prison and figured I could use the wi fi at Mcd's to go online.